Westport Medicaid lawyers provide help in making certain you can get covered by Medicaid if you need Medicaid to pay for your care. You may think that qualifying for Medicaid is not something you need to worry about if, like most people, you believe that Medicaid is only a healthcare coverage program for low-income people. This is actually a common misconception because, while Medicaid does cover people with lower incomes, it also covers a substantial percentage of the senior population who need long-term care. 
There is a very real chance that you could need Medicaid to pay for your to get long term care as you get older. If you haven’t made advanced plans for this possibility, you could be forced to spend all of your wealth on nursing home care or other long term care services. Only after impoverishing yourself to drop your financial resources below Medicaid’s allowable limits would you finally be able to get covered.
If you work with Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates to plan ahead to get Medicaid to pay for you without having to spend your wealth, however, you can preserve your ability to leave a legacy while getting the care you need.
How Many Seniors Need Medicaid?
In 2015, six million of the 97 million Americans who used Medicaid at some point during the year were 65-years-old or older, according to The Motley Fool. Medicaid is widely used by seniors due to the fact that only Medicaid covers the kind of custodial care (routine daily care) needed by most residents of nursing homes.
Medicare and the majority of private insurance policies only pay for nursing home care if it is provided in a skilled nursing facility and if specialized care of some kind is needed, like changing of bandages after a surgical procedure is performed. Otherwise, there is no coverage for nursing home care or for long term care at home. While you could buy a long term care insurance policy, coverage limitations with these policies, along with high premiums, generally means that this type of policy isn’t the best or most practical way to get care costs covered. Instead, most seniors who need long term care or nursing home care have to pay privately if they cannot qualify for Medicaid.
Paying privately for nursing home care or long-term care is very expensive, with average costs throughout the United States coming in at more than $82,000 per year for nursing home care and more than $46,330 for a home healthcare aide. Even wealthier families cannot afford these costs for very long, but unfortunately many people will end up spending a substantial amount of their personal wealth on nursing home care or home care aides simply because they have no other options. If you need this kind of care and insurance won’t pay, you’ll have to use your own assets. Medicaid will eventually kick in and begin paying nursing home bills or long term care costs after a senior has already impoverished himself, but this is hopefully avoidable if you work with Westport Medicaid attorneys to make a Medicaid plan to get care covered as soon as it is needed.
Since seven in ten Americans who reach the age of 65 will end up needing long term care services and will need these services for an average of three years, it makes a lot of sense to make a Medicaid plan so your assets are protected if you become one of the majority who needs care. Medicaid covers more than 60 percent of nursing home residents and pays for 40 percent of all long-term care costs throughout the United States, so you should make sure that you are able to get Medicaid to pay for your care by working with Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates to make an advanced plan. If you do not take action, you could lose the opportunity to protect your wealth and leave a legacy.
Getting Help from Westport Medicaid Lawyers
Westport Medicaid lawyers at Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates will help you to make sure that a need for nursing home care or long term care does not cause you to fall into poverty and become unable to leave a legacy. Since there is such a substantial chance you will eventually need nursing home care that only Medicaid will pay for, you should not hesitate to reach out to our legal team to get help putting a plan in place.
To find out more about how Medicaid planning works, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at 860-548-1000 or contact us online to get personalized help with the Medicaid planning process. Call today to find out more about putting your plan in place.
Mr. Nirenstein is licensed to practice before the courts of the State of Connecticut and the United States District Court. He is a member of the Connecticut and Hartford County Bar Associations, and the Estate and Probate, Elder Law, Business Law and Real Estate Sections of the Connecticut Bar Association.
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